\|/ Turn 7, early light
I can't understand everything that happened. I'll… try my best to describe it all.
I have to document this, despite not wanting to remember it.
Turn 5 was when the eye stared at me the entire night. I tried hissing at it, throwing more rocks, even fake charging it once. It didn't care.
I think it wanted me to approach. To lose my sanity and try to attack it.
I didn't sleep that turn, three turns without sleep.
On turn 6, during light, I was in a state of utter paranoia. I was not functioning. I could barely register the taste in the wind. All I tasted was sweet acid. I kept looking around for the eye, for places to hide. I spent the entirety of lighttime collapsing from exhaustion, only to snap awake when I saw the eye in my dreams and heard the breathing in my head. Darkness came far too quickly.
I thought hiding would save me.
It didn't.
I hid in a bush that was beside a tree. I thought I was safe when I didn't see the eye.
But then it appeared.
It was less than length away. I had forgotten my staff during light that turn when I was stumbling around, half awake, and I couldn't illuminate it. But it was there.
I stood up quickly and backed up against the tree.
That's when the monster struck.
It was another being, like the Shrieker I had seen before, but much worse.
I tried to pierce me with a far too sharp chitinous snout. I barely moved out of the way. It struck where my throat was. I screamed and tried to slash it. It moved out of the way with no effort and went to strike again. I ran.
I had no idea where I was running. I just ran. I barely heard it behind me. It was dead silent except for four limbs hitting the leaves and the raspy breath. Every breath was painful when I was near it.
I felt the cloak on the wings envelop me. It was darkness itself swallowing me whole. It immediately recoiled when it touched my thorns. It wasn't expecting them. But even in pain, even as I felt my thorns pierce the winged cloak, it was silent. It let go and I continued to run.
I was starting to collapse from exhaustion, my lungs burning from panting, when I saw light.
I didn't think, I just ran towards it.
The living shadow got closer and closer.
I finally stumbled into the light, a warm yellow washing over me.
Only to realize I was on the opposite side of the alien who was underneath its own blanket made from the parachute.
It snapped awake and scrambled upwards, grabbing the hatchet.
I saw the living shadow stop at the edge of the light, the eye staring, breathing deeply.
The alien saw it too and waved its hatchet around while roaring so loudly it hurt. Mid roar it started coughing from the air taste of the living shadow.
I coiled into a ball as the alien continued roaring, approaching the living shadow, and swinging the axe with the intent to drive off the horrific being.
The worst thing is that it worked. The mad alien had done it.
It swung the axe at the bush next to the eye. The alien, being bigger, was about eye level with it. The eye backed off and then left completely. For the first time in three turns, there was no eye. The air wasn't on fire.
Then the alien turned and stared at me, hatchet in its good arm.
I couldn't run anymore. Everything hurt. I only had the suit on me with the pockets; I'd even lost my cloak I worked so hard to make.
"Just be quick." I told the alien. I was too tired to care anymore.
It slowly retreated to the other side of the campfire and put the hatchet next to its side, baffling me.
I stared at the alien from my coiled position, that malformed body and face. It stared back at me.
Then, despite myself, I started to drift to sleep. I couldn't keep conscious anymore. I wanted to scream, to do anything, but I would be at the mercy of the alien. Next to the warm fire, exhausted and insane, I fell asleep.
I dreamt of eyes.
And now I'm here. It's morning of turn 7.
I woke up a few moments ago, a PARACHUTE BLANKET covering me, next to the burnt-out fire. The alien isn't here, neither is the hatchet.
Why, why am I alive?
Why did it cover me with another parachute part?!
This thing is mad, destroying without purpose while roaring, scaring off literal nightmares, and then it let me sleep near it, and covered me with a blanket?
I must've lost it. I must be dreaming or something. Maybe the air taste from the living shadow finally got in my nervous system.
I'm writing all of this frantically right now. If I'm not dreaming or dead, then something weird happened.
I swear on both Ignae, I'm going to go insane.
I'm scribbling this all down like a madscale, though I see it coming back now. I'll hide the notebook.
\|/ Turn 7, late dark
Weird things are still happening.
It's asleep now, I'll write how the entire turn went.
When it approached, I hid the notebook in a pocket in the suit. I wasn't completely sure what I expected it to do with my notebook, but I didn't want to risk losing it. This journal is all I have at this point.
It approached me, now completely visible in light, and stopped about two lengths away. I scampered upwards, nervous, and stared at it. It didn't seem to notice the nervous tail flick.
I couldn't gauge its mood from the air taste. My senses were returning, but the aliens taste was incomprehensible. The far too round pupils bore into my soul.
It was carrying some sticks and a few larger ones in its good arm. The hatchet hung by its side. It seemed to have improvised a holder for it. It put down the sticks close to where the campfire was and made that weird arm flailing gesture, the one from when we were both EVA. Then, for whatever reason, it bared its teeth at me.
That got me to flinch and back away. It stopped baring its teeth and looked at me.
A cold terror gripped me. Keep this thing calm, I thought. Under any circumstance.
I reciprocated the arm flailing, remembering it seemed to like that in space, silently saying "Please don't kill me". I wanted to avoid doing anything to anger it. Seemingly satisfied, it made some kind of quick hand gesture and started walking away. I continued standing there, not sure what to do.
It looked behind itself, seeing me still far away, and repeated that gesture and continued walking.
I stood there, unmoving. What did it want? What is that gesture?
It looked behind itself again and breathed in deeply.
Oh no
I stood frozen as it approached again, I couldn't move. I thought this would be the end of me.
I should've let the living shadow take me, it would've been quicker. I thought to myself.
It stopped in front of me, looming, but not too close. It seemed to respect some personal space, likely due to being clawed last time.
It made several gestures:
Leftmost finger touching its chest
Leftmost finger and center finger pointing downwards, wiggling in some fashion that seemed to resemble bipedal walk if you squinted, closed your eyes and fell asleep
Leftmost finger hovering in the air in front of me (I still don't understand this, I wasn't about to sniff its finger)
The same two finger wiggling motion
This left me even more confused. At this point I was so exasperated that I would've taken the tree destruction treatment over this.
It started walking again. I was getting bored and started to collect leaves for a new blanket (or cloak, since I figured out how to make it stable enough with the last one, before I lost it).
It turned back to me again, walked back to me again, and made another gesture while vocalizing.
It cupped its hand and brought it to its face, tilting it upwards.
Realization dawned.
"Drinking?" I asked it. It didn't answer, of course, vocalizing something.
The motion isn't applicable for Thornkin, but it was for all other Scale. I saw it a few times in shows and such.
It's offering me water? I thought to myself.
Maybe it wants me to check for water safety or something.Be useful to it.
It's resourceful enough to use me for such things, since it already has full power over me at the moment.
It started walking again and I followed it. This time when it looked back it bared its teeth at me again and said something. I flinched but didn't back away, keeping my safe-ish distance. I think teeth baring might be its version of conformation or something similar. It's deeply unsettling, but it seems to do that when I perform actions that it wants me to do.
I followed it for a bit (though I had to run at times due to the size difference). It brought me to the same water spring as before, when it didn't know I had followed it.
It then did the same gesture, leftmost finger in the air. I still wasn't sure what that meant, so I got into the water to drink. Do what it wants, don't get dismembered seemed like a solid strategy. Its air taste remained equally unhelpful during the entire ordeal.
I got into the water (being careful to leave my wounds above the water level again) and let my body absorb it. It was cold, even colder than before. It's getting colder.
It stared at me and then seemed to breathe rapidly. Then rhythmically, with vocalization. Its eyes watered (such a waste) and it bent over, holding its stomach.
It was laughing.
Laughing. This thing can laugh.
Not proper laughing, its own weird version of it, but close enough to be recognizable as laughter. Me being in the water seemed to trigger this.
The worst thing was that its laughter was infectious. I hadn't heard laughter, true, actual laughter for a cycle, and I started laughing myself.
Just two aliens in a strange world, having lost their minds.
After a few moments of this it calmed down, and so did I.
At that moment, I decided to call it Friend. Why not? I thought to myself, it needs something other than alien or mad-thing, and I shared a laugh with it.
Friend continued having its teeth bared (definitely conformation) and moved its head left and right (stretching?).
It waited for me to leave the water and then bent down and drank with the tube thing. This baffled me utterly.
Why…? Wasn't the point for me to drink first to see if the water had been contaminated? Why isn't it waiting to see if I'm poisoned first?
Is it really just sharing?
It drank and then got up, teeth still bared, walking towards the camp.
I followed.
Midlight came. It was enjoyably warm now. I lightbathed on a rock in the camp, staring at a berry bush in utter desperation. The many air tastes assaulted my senses once more.
Friend was hiding in the shade for some reason. I can't fathom why.
I stared at the bush for about a mark, stomach cramping. I was this close to just going to it and eating every berry I saw.
But then I noticed a recurring pattern. Some kind of flying Tau beings, the size of my tailend, kept landing on different parts of the bush. They were tiny, having four little wings and two little legs, with a chitinous snout, picking at specific berries.
Yellow, red, orange.
Yellow, red, orange.
Just those.
They didn't touch the black, green, blue or white ones.
After staring and staring I snapped and went to the bush. I decided to pick up the yellow, red and orange ones.
If the inhabitants of this forsaken place can eat them, well damn it all so can I!!
"Ah yes, trust the miniature versions of the thing that tried to kill you." I heard SILT say.
"Shut up SILT" I said.
Then I looked around. There was no SILT. I was imagining (or hallucinating) it.
I need food. Now. I thought to myself.
I forced myself to eat the berries. They were extremely coarse, overly sweet (making my snout scrunch up). I ate more and more.
Feeling so full I felt sick, I stumbled back to my rock.
If I die, at least I won't die hungry, I thought to myself, slowly drifting to sleep, fully having accepted the possibility of being poisoned.
And then I fell asleep.
It was the best sleep I have had since the crash. I wasn't starving, I was on direct light, I was hydrated.
I woke up, the red dwarf slightly lower now, but still very warm.
And I was fine.
I did it, I thought.
I FOUND FOOD!!
I got up, jumping a bit, before immediately stopping due to the torn thorns. The wounds didn't like that feeling at all.
But I had done it. First Scale to find food on an alien planet. I was ecstatic for the first time in a long time.
Then I remembered Friend. It was in the same spot as before, one arm still in the sling, the other over its stomach.
Be a nice Scale, I thought.
If it was really sharing water with me… Maybe if I shared food we could work something out?
I picked a handful of the berries, the good ones, and slowly approached it. It was in a semi-curled position, eyes closed, sleeping.
I didn't want to wake it, I didn't want to touch it, but I found the courage to try.
I poked it once, very, very nervously in the side on the clothing.
It didn't stir, its stomach making some kind of weird noise.
"Come on…" I whimpered. I really didn't want to touch this thing.
I poked it again, this time properly. The feeling of the flesh giving way instead of scales repelling the action was nauseating.
It woke up this time, rather violently, sitting up quickly. This startled me and sent me falling backwards on my wounds.
"OW!" I yelped, immediately changing position and rubbing the wounds.
I quickly got up again and approached it incredibly slowly.
Don't provoke it don't provoke it don't provoke it don't provoke it don't provoke it
I held out the berries in both hands, looking away, hoping it wouldn't bite my hand off.
It took one of the berries and ate it, chewing for far too long with that non-snout.
It made a vocalization and took more.
I looked at it, glad the situation resolved nicely. I bared my teeth at it. It laughed a few times.
I'm actually doing it, I'm managing to befriend it.
It continued picking the berries from my hand. Then I noticed a white one. It picked that one next.
"NO!!" I hissed, swatting the white one away.
It got startled by the action and stared at the white berry, now a few lengths away.
I bowed my head in what I hoped to be a submission.
Then it laughed again. Why does it laugh so much?
It continued eating.
Thank the suns. It didn't see this is aggression.
It ate the rest, taking them from my hand, and I showed it where the shrub was, picking only the correct ones.
We spent the rest of the day doing our own separate things. I gathered more leaves, preparing to make a new cloak next turn, while it gathered more wood.
Then I finally saw how it made the fires all along. It had found a darker stone (pulling it out of its pocket in the clothes) and struck it a few times against the back of the hatchet. I was genuinely impressed.
Now it's sleeping, further away from the fire than me. We both have blanket parachutes, it let me keep one. Its air taste is bearable, more so than some other Scale I know, even in proximity. I'm going to go to sleep now.
There is no eye.
I have a Friend.